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People have an obligation to live up to their potential.

Bette Midler

My parents taught me: Do not rely on a man. Not rely on it that you get married and it pays for you. That’s what I figured. I have always paid my own bills.
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Men Parent Pay
A lot of people started drinking martinis and smoking cigarettes because they felt it was cool.
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Cigarettes Cool Smoking
When I read that, I burst into tears. It was so generous and so basic. Not fluffy. I can’t understand why we scrimp on education and shortchange our kids. Why would the citizenry do that to the people who are going to inherit its republic?
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Country Generous Kids Shortchange Understand
When I started in this [music] business, I had a dream, but it was amorphous, and I had no experience. I just had a fuzzy notion of what life would be like if I became what I pictured.
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Dream Fuzzy
I feel like a million tonight – but one at a time.
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Inspiration Memorable Tonight
Some say love it is a river that drowns the tender reeds. Some say love, it is a razor that leaves your heart to bleed. Some say love, it is a hunger, an endless aching need. I say love, it is a flower and you, its only seed.
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Flower Heart River
There’s the media-driven universe, in which the public perceives you in a superficial way. Then there’s the universe that you actually inhabit, where you have to get up even if you didn’t sleep so well, and you feel like crap and your face is swollen.
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Media Sleep Way
From a distance the world looks blue and green, and the snow-capped mountains white. From a distance the ocean meets the stream, and the eagle takes to flight. From a distance, there is harmony, and it echoes through the land. It’s the voice of hope, it’s the voice of peace, it’s the voice of every man
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Distance Men Ocean
I’m so glad to be back in New York. Los Angeles can be so cold, so cruel after you’ve been-what’s the word?-oh yes: ‘fired.’
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Back Cold Country Cruel Glad
Marriage is such hard work. And it’s full of rage and real human drama.
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Drama Hard Work Real
There’s a kind of emotional exploration you plumb with a friend that you don’t really do with your family.
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Emotional Friends Kind
It is true that in this culture, they throw you out when you get older. I see it all the time, especially in my business. At my age, you’re playing somebody’s mother – and there aren’t even a lot of those roles!
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Age Culture Mother
Self-esteem is something you have to earn! The only way to achieve self-esteem is to work hard. People have an obligation to live up to their potential.
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Hard People Self Esteem Work
I love nature, in spite of what it did to me.
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Nature Love Spite
The only thing Madonna will ever do like a virgin is give birth in a stable.
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Birth Giving Virgins
A lot of people have no access to beauty. When I was growing up, my mother had only a few pretty things to look at.
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Grow Up Mother People
It’s the one who won’t be taken that cannot seem to give, and the soul afraid of dying that never learns to live.
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Dance Fear Philosophy
it will cleanse itself, and new life forms, maybe better ones, will come. Meanwhile, we’ll have gotten exactly what we deserved: annihilation.
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Annihilation Costume Exactly Gotten
When the movies first started, audiences were dumbstruck to see actresses walking around in evening gowns. They’d never seen anything like that. They wanted to be like those actors and actresses, so the movies informed their behavior.
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Drinking People Smoking
You have to be alert. When my daughter, Sophie, came out of the womb, she was instantly alert, as if she had been here before. And she was a little disappointed that she was here again.
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Daughter Littles Sophie
I firmly believe that with the right footwear one can rule the world.
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Believe Fashion World
Self-esteem is something you have to earn!
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Earn Self Esteem Something
I’ve always been lucky enough to have great audiences. It has been quite a life.
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Audience Enough Lucky
All these rumors about [Tom Cruise] being gay. I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it for one minute. He hasn’t been to one of my shows.
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Believe Gay Rumor
Writing a book is not as tough as it is to haul thirty-five people around the country and sweat like a horse five nights a week.
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Book Country Horse
When I finally did stop and look at my life, I realized that I had done what I’d set out to do. In my pitiful little way, I had climbed the mountain I had chosen. And there I was, on top.
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Done Looks Mountain
That’s our mission: to clean and green New York City – one block at a time.
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Block Cities Country

People have an obligation to live up to their potential.

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People have an obligation to live up to their potential.

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